Crack!
"...Gah!"
Sir Ulrich let out a scream before he knew it.
The world spun around.
It felt like his cheek had vanished.
Something shot out from his gaping mouth. It flew. It scattered into the air.
Only then could Sir Ulrich vaguely make out the identity of the object flying off into the distance.
'A molar?'
Three pristine molars spun individually as they soared through the air.
Around them, bright red blood droplets and saliva tangled messily, tracing complex paths.
'Amazing...'
A dazed sensation, as if time itself had slowed.
Amid it, flying molars and blood droplets.
In his 26 years of life, he had never seen such a sight like this.
It was interesting.
Though it also made him dizzy.
'...Uh, uhh.'
His legs gave out.
His waist buckled.
The ground drew near.
His head, unbidden, slammed into the dirt.
His lips smashed, forcing a kiss onto the ground.
Fresh blood welled up between his lips once more.
Only then did Sir Ulrich's dulled senses return to normal.
Along with the throbbing, vivid pain of his burst lips, the three yanked molars, and one shattered cheekbone.
"...Gr, gruuugh?"
It hurt.
It really hurt.
It hurt so damn much!
"Mmph! Gr, glurk!"
He clutched one side of his face.
The shock and pain left him with no wits about him.
He struggled to grasp the situation.
'Did I crash into something? An accident? Or an attack? Who?'
He desperately turned his muddled mind.
But his frantic pondering(?) was in vain; the answer came all too simply.
Along with the shovel handle dropping from above.
"What's with the what!"
Thwack!
"...Heuk!"
The blunt shovel handle plunged vertically, striking his solar plexus.
His breath caught.
He bent like a shrimp.
Daring to look up at his attacker, he strained his eyes.
Sir Ulrich's eyes went wide.
"Young...? Gah!"
Slash!
The shovel handle whipped across his face.
His lips mashed even further, his head snapping to the side.
But Sir Ulrich couldn't mount a proper response.
He had taken too many massive blows in his defenseless state.
'Wh, why? Why?'
He couldn't understand.
He couldn't react.
Standing up was a pipe dream.
Lloyd's merciless shovel swings made any rash move impossible.
Before that pitiless violence, Sir Ulrich could only groan and shield his face and head with both arms.
Thud, crack! Burst! Thump!
"Guh! Urgh!"
Terror twisted Sir Ulrich's face.
A strange conviction stabbed into his pain-filled mind.
'Th, this is it. I'm really gonna die!'
It was true.
Beyond his shielding arms over his face.
Lloyd's glimpse through the gap told the tale.
The bratty young lord's eyes staring this way proved it.
That bastard was swinging the shovel with utterly calm eyes.
'Of course. To properly crush someone stronger than me, I need to stay cool.'
Crack!
Swinging the shovel mercilessly, Lloyd thought.
Give him even a moment to breathe, and Sir Ulrich would rise.
That would twist his intentions.
'After all the trouble to land the first blow successfully, you think I'll let this chance slip? Me?'
The first strike wins—that's the law of fights.
A surprise attack launched before Sir Ulrich could react.
Thanks to it, he had seized complete control.
'Even a knight can't help but fall to sudden blows like this. Especially a low-level sword user who just barely formed a Mana Heart.'
The novel *Iron-Blooded Knight*.
The faces of the baron's knights he'd read about there came to mind.
Sir Ulrich was the weakest among the territory's knights.
Just a low-level sword user who had barely formed a Mana Heart.
Yet he always looked down on Lloyd subtly. Sneered at him.
'That's why I called you here today. To make an example of you. I can't have guys nitpicking everything I try from now on. At least not in this territory.'
Momentum matters with people.
Bend once in a conflict?
Start yielding like some saint?
Then yielding and favors become the norm.
You turn into a pushover.
He had learned that lesson bone-deep in Korea.
'Especially on no-job sites. Those ajusshi types—some have nasty tempers.'
The so-called masters.
Plenty were kind-hearted.
But he drew the short straw.
Paired with a cranky, twisted master.
Tormented all day.
Nitpicked over nothing, cursed at nonstop while working.
At first, he endured.
Rebelling felt off.
He just smiled and got called a good kid.
'But that wasn't the answer.'
One day, the master brought up his parents.
Dropped a family diss.
How did he respond that day?
'Like this.'
Crack!
The shovel Lloyd swung this time smashed Sir Ulrich's shin.
"Gaaahk!"
Sir Ulrich, who had been groaning and trying to rise, clutched his shin and collapsed in agony.
But Lloyd's expression showed no change.
'After dropping one epic curse like that, things got way easier.'
It had been the same back then.
The moment he heard the family diss, something snapped.
He immediately smashed his master with the shovel he held.
The site erupted, of course.
But after?
Smooth sailing.
No one messed with him easily anymore.
It was a life lesson learned the hard way.
'That's why I dragged you to this site. Among the territory's knights, you're the easiest mark. You just barely made your Mana Heart recently, right? This felt like the angle for a preemptive beatdown.'
A plan drawn from the novel's content.
For Sir Ulrich.
He predicted the knight would defy or act insolent at least once on site.
And that prediction hit the mark perfectly.
Punish one to warn a hundred.
Sir Ulrich had become the perfect sacrificial lamb for the example.
Thud! Kwak! Burst!
Lloyd didn't stop his shoveling(?).
A scream finally burst from Sir Ulrich's mouth.
"Gr! Urgh! Y, Young lord! Why!"
"Why? For insubordination."
Thwack!
With every shovel swing.
Lloyd's cold words dropped.
"Now, say that again from before."
"Wait... Heuk!"
Crack!
"'Honorable knight'? 'Can't accept orders to oversee dirt hauling'?"
"But... Hng!"
Crack!
"But my ass. Let's get technical? Do I look like I mobilized soldiers privately? Huh?"
"Gah!"
Slash!
"See this? Mobilization permit. Official document approved by my father and issued by the administrator. So you..."
Kwak!
"Defied the lawful lord of this territory—the one you swore loyalty to yourself—with your honorable knight bullshit. In other words—"
Thwack!
"One, you disobeyed your liege lord's orders."
Crack!
"Two, you shamed your lord and abandoned your knightly duty."
Kwak!
"Three, you threw your own qualifications and pride in the dirt."
Thuuud!
Like a golf tee shot, a full swing sent the shovel rising from below.
The flat face of the shovel head uppercut Sir Ulrich's jaw.
That was the end.
Ptoo!
Blood droplets sprayed into the air following Sir Ulrich's head snapping back violently.
Sir Ulrich crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.
He had passed out.
"Whew."
Lloyd caught his ragged breath.
The rare intense exercise(?) had his lungs burning.
But it was worth it.
'Gotta crush the ones who need crushing.'
The novel *Iron-Blooded Knight*.
The Frontera Barony glimpsed in its opening was a mess.
Using a knight like Sir Ulrich—no loyalty, no talent—was proof.
'Guys like this need to be culled ASAP. Fill the gaps with promising ones. That's how this territory gets a future.'
A territory he'd milk forever.
To farm and nurture it long-term, time to swap out the trash early.
He wiped the sweat streaming down his forehead with his sleeve and looked around.
"What're you staring at? Got a show?"
"...!"
The soldiers who had stopped work to watch flinched and turned away.
Lloyd beckoned nearby soldiers.
"You there. And you two over there. Come here."
"...Y-Yes, sir!"
Three soldiers rushed over like the wind.
Lloyd nodded at the sprawled Sir Ulrich.
"Haul this guy away. Then go to the mansion and fetch Sir Bayern."
"Got it!"
They had just witnessed the fate of the knight who questioned his orders.
The three soldiers moved in perfect sync the moment he spoke.
They hoisted the swollen, passed-out Sir Ulrich—face puffy like a rice cake.
They hurried toward the mansion.
Soon after.
"I heard you summoned me, Lord Lloyd."
A solidly built knight with a firm face arrived on site.
Sir Bayern, summoned by the soldiers.
Lloyd grinned satisfyingly at the sight of Sir Bayern.
'Better than I imagined from the novel.'
Sir Bayern.
One of the five knights of the Frontera baronial family.
Along with Haviel, he never betrayed his lord to the end.
Loyalty verified by the novel.
'Gotta raise guys like this. Talent's average per the story, but trustworthy comes first.'
Sir Bayern was honest and diligent.
That's why Lloyd's final intent was to entrust the site's construction team to him.
'The whole situation was designed from the start, after all.'
Call the troublemaker Sir Ulrich.
Find an excuse on site to crush him.
Set an example to warn the rest.
Then summon Sir Bayern, the intended replacement.
This way, he crushed the trash, seized site control, and naturally handed the helm to Sir Bayern, whom he'd nurture.
Lloyd spoke to Sir Bayern.
"Yeah. I did. Thinking of putting you in charge of this site today. What do you say?"
"Any task you give, I'll do."
"Good. It's nothing major. Soldiers'll dig up loess here and haul it to site. Just supervise so they don't slack too much. Give proper breaks in between, of course. Can't have them collapsing from overwork."
"Understood."
No questions asked.
He must have heard about Sir Ulrich.
But no sign of it.
That made him even more trustworthy.
And so, Lloyd left the loess pit to Sir Bayern and headed out.
To the ondol room construction site.
There, territory-recruited carpenters, masons, plasterers, tilers, and skilled laborers waited.
Naturally, the skilled workers' gazes held no respect.
Anxiety wondering why this thuggish brat summoned them.
Disgust, wanting no deep involvement.
Eyes full of such emotions.
But Lloyd paid no mind to their stares.
He stepped forward calmly.
"I'll now explain the ondol concept and construction method. Pay attention properly."
"...Pardon?"
The skilled workers tilted their heads.
To them, Lloyd was a spoiled bratty young master.
Yet he'd teach construction methods to battle-hardened pros like them?
Like a puppeteer before a chrysalis.
Breathing on a dragon.
Ridiculous.
But only for a moment.
"First, look at this. All eyes here."
Shwaak!
Lloyd unfurled the ondol room blueprint before them.
A meticulously drawn plan based on the Design skill—unlike anything these rural craftsmen, used to slapdash builds, had ever seen.
"...."
Then Lloyd's dazzling, expert explanation flowed endlessly, like a 16-bit rapid rhythm.
The skilled workers' expressions and eyes began to change bit by bit.
♣
Half a day passed.
As expected, Sir Bayern didn't betray his trust.
Thanks to his diligent supervision, the soldiers hauled loess to site without issue.
Physical training was a bonus.
Lloyd had been busy too.
He directed the skilled workers all day on site.
Belting tools to his waist, sweating as he laid flue stones himself and taught ondol methods.
'...Thanks to that process, we safely finished the first official construction day.'
Dusk was falling.
Having safely completed the first day.
Lloyd surveyed the cleanup site.
'Luckily, the skilled workers picked it up faster than expected. Things'll be easier ahead.'
Skilled workers were skilled for a reason.
Site experience wasn't for show.
They showed keen interest in the novel flue stones.
Given the concept, they grasped ondol essentials on their own.
Guide them a bit more, and he could hand off the site fully.
'Then the system's set. Tech work to skilled workers, grunt labor to soldiers, overall supervision to Sir Bayern. Meaning, while ondol construction proceeds, I don't need to be on site daily—I can focus elsewhere.'
That was the point of assembling a pro team.
Business runs itself.
Earn money while freeing time for other investments.
Mission accomplished; time for the next phase.
'This territory's constitution reform isn't done yet.'
Sir Ulrich was just the start.
Bigger rotten roots remain to uproot.
'About time for reactions.'
As Lloyd thought that.
"Lord Lloyd? I've come regarding Sir Ulrich's matter, as I have something to say."
A haughty, prickly voice flew from behind.
Haviel?
No.
'Here he comes, as expected. Sir Neumann.'
Sir Neumann, senior knight of Frontera Barony.
The betrayer in the novel *Iron-Blooded Knight* who contributed most to the baronial family's downfall.
Turning to Sir Neumann, who had finally appeared here, Lloyd wore the smile of an angler landing a prize catch.
(End of Chapter 8)
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